A Prolonged Conversation
by Darken Every Legend
Summary: Annabeth was having a pretty weird day without her cousin suddenly breaking into the funeral parlour and messing up his own dead body… one-shot (at the moment - I might continue it.) Magnus and Annabeth's conversation at the end of the Sword of Summer.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, guys :)**

 **So this is really short, but there is something about writing the fifth MCatGoA (wow, that was long) story on this site that seems really cool, so please humour me and don't change your mind about reading it just because this A/N completely failed.**

 **Disclaimer: I think we have established by this stage that I am not Rick Riordan.**

 **Annabeth**

Annabeth was just a little confused.

First, her father had burst into her room and informed her she needed to come with him to do something important.

Then it turned out her cousin Magnus had vanished, and, in fact, been missing for two years, but they hadn't been informed because of some stupid family rivalry thing.

Then Magnus died in some freak accident that her uncle Randolph, who had apparently tried to kidnap him or something, had somehow survived despite being right next to him at the time.

Then she visited the funeral place, and surprise! A slightly buffer version of Magnus turned up _next to his own body_ and informed her he wasn't really dead.

Then she discovered he was on a quest and he left her behind to go do some demigod stuff. She was assuming.

Then she was forced to pretend she believed he was actually dead and act sad about it, and convince… well, everyone she knew… that it was fact.

So it was kind of obvious why she wanted answers now.

"Let's hear what you've been up to," she said, with a small smile at her cousin.

"Oh, no," he grinned. "Your story is so amazing? You go first."

Annabeth laughed, sitting down beside Magnus on a rock. "Um… right…" _Where in Hades was she supposed to begin?_

"Well… you've, uh, heard of the Greek gods, right?" she said, using the same tactic she used on new campers at Camp Half-Blood.

"Yeah?" Magnus looked at her expectantly, but his eyes were slightly more narrowed than before, as if she was going down a different track than the one he'd expected her to take.

"Well…" Annabeth delved into her story, skimming over a few things, but for the most part she told him everything – even about Luke. She had a feeling, somehow, that he would understand.

"That is… a lot of trouble," Magnus muttered. "So it appears…" he threw up his hands dramatically, with a grin on his face, "That I owe you lunch. Even if I am the only one currently sitting on this rock who can say he has died."

"What?" Annabeth blurted out, mind whirling. "Died? But resurrection isn't possible… the ancient laws would have to be seriously bent…"

Suddenly, she noticed the way he was fingering a small pendant on his chest that she was pretty sure he hadn't had before.

"Okay," she said finally. "Spill."

"Um…" he whistled. "This is a little strange…"

"Well, you've got a long time," Annabeth helped him stand, moving purposefully towards the falafel place he'd pointed out earlier. "So, tell me about how you died."

She could have sworn he gulped.

 **Yep, it was short, I know, but I'd still be really pleased if you reviewed!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Magnus**

I'm not modest. I'm just terrible at storytelling.

Annabeth held off with the questions while we were ordering, but just one look into her stormy grey eyes told me all I needed to know – that she was bursting with questions. Not much different to usual, really.

I ran over the events of the past weeks in my head and considered where to start at length… then came up completely blank.

To anyone else at any other time, it might have seemed a good idea to begin at the beginning, except I really wasn't sure there _was_ a beginning. Honestly, you consider it. Would it be better to talk about how Annabeth's aunt was brutally murdered, or how our uncle _knew_ and didn't help, or… great idea! How I died falling off a bridge, stabbing a flaming jotun with the sword my dad lost several hundred years ago? Although, judging by her story, she was plenty used to weird and scary stuff – probably quite a lot more than I was, to be honest. But still…

You probably see my point by now.

The falafel arrived, and I barely tasted any of it.

"Magnus?" Annabeth asked eventually.

"Um – yeah?"

"You're a terrible procrastinator," she shot me a quick, somehow unnerving smile. "And I would like to hear how you died, _now._ "

"Uh…" I pushed my hair back nervously. "Well. Um. I was, er, asleep. And then Uncle Randolph turned up."

 _No, that really wasn't it._

"You mean, he just happened to appear in whatever weird location you were sleeping in?" Annabeth asked with raised eyebrows. "Not that I'm judging. My friends… never mind. Keep going."

"Well, actually, that wasn't really it. I was asleep, like I said. Then I, uh, woke up. And went to Randolph's house."

Annabeth was looking highly doubtful of my sanity by this point, but she nodded, beckoning for me to keep going. I raised my fork to my mouth and discovered there was nothing on it. I'd eaten the entire plate.

"Yeah, so, like I said, I got to Randolph's. And, then… he turned up, which was weird."

"Really weird," Annabeth commented. "Turning up in his house. How strange."

"Er – yeah. So he started telling me this really weird stuff – about how I was sixteen, and something was _coming for me._ And then he drove me down to Longfellow Bridge and told me to try and summon a sword out of the water there before the thing arrived. Oh, and this whole time, we kept hearing these crashes – like miniature explosions – getting nearer and nearer.

"Figures," Annabeth muttered, which was weird, because I couldn't see how _anything_ figured at all. But then, what did I know? Annabeth was the super smart one. I was the kid of the god of mellow sunshine, or something.

"Keep going," she repeated impatiently.

"Um… well, I couldn't get the sword for a while. By the time I did, this giant dude arrived – the lord of fire – and tried to kill everyone. And… then we both died."

"Wait, you _both_ died? As in the giant as well?"

Definitely not offended she was more concerned for the giant than for me.

"Yeah. I stabbed it… and we fell off the bridge."

"You killed a giant. With no training." Annabeth repeated.

"That's… what I said."

"What did it look like? The 'lord of fire'?"

"Well… kinda hot, actually. Like… Satan's fashion consultant."

"How many eyes?" she asked, an unreadable expression clouding her features.

"Um… two."

She blinked, looking vaguely surprised. "Okay. Keep going."

"So, I woke up, and I was standing outside this weird hotel thing. The bellhop appeared and told me I was dead – like I hadn't realised – and told me I'd be staying forever."

Annabeth's head jerked up. "Some weird hotel thing? Was there a massive arcade? Did you lose track of time? Did they offer you any food?"

"Er… no. They offered me a minibar key, though, and said I needed it because I'd be staying forever… or at least until Ragnarok."

"What did you say?" Annabeth said quickly, suddenly sounding positively alarmed. I blinked, trying to figure out what I'd said that had been _worse_ than the rest of my story – you know, the dying-while-impaling-evil-flaming-Hollister-model part.

"They offered me a minibar key because I'd be staying until Ragnarok," I repeated.

"Oh, gods, no," Annabeth muttered. "This is _not_ happening. I thought the Romans and Egyptians were bad enough… now _this…"_

I worked through my explanation and finally figured out what she was talking about. "Oh. The Ragnarok thing. Wait… You know Norse mythology?"

"Only barely," she replied distractedly, pushing a stray hair behind her ear. "I did some reading a couple of years ago – that's not important now. Magnus, do you know who your father was?"

"Um, yeah. Annabeth, I don't want you to freak out, but, judging by your story, I guess you already know-"

"He was a Norse god," she sighed.

"Yeah. Frey. You probably haven't heard of him…"

"I have," she replied instantly. "I did some reading… that's not important now. What's important is you're safe. Skip the long explanation. We can save that… there's someone I need you to meet. Sorry…"

She brought out a small cell phone and flicked to her speed dial, pressing the first number that appeared. I caught a brief glimpse of the name; _Seaweed Brain._

 _Seaweed Brain?_ Who could that… oh.

I racked my brains long and hard. "The fish boyfriend?" I recalled. "Percy?"

Annabeth motioned impatiently for me to shut up, at the same time nodding in response _and_ talking over the phone. It was pretty impressive, really.

"Percy?" she asked.

The vague sound of someone speaking over the line reached my ears.

"Look, I need you to come to Boston, okay? There's weird stuff going on." Annabeth fiddled with a strand of blonde, curly hair as she talked – a nervous habit, probably. I had similar problems.

She rolled her eyes after a slight pause, but I got the impression it wasn't at me.

"Yeah. And, no. Not Greek. I think… Norse. It's my cousin."

She waited, then laughed briefly. "The Red Sox one, yeah."

"Hey!" I protested. "What wrong with that?"

She flapped her hand at me impatiently, as if telling me to shut up. "Yeah, okay. Love you."

She reached down and pressed the end call button with such professionalism it belonged in an office. Like, a seriously posh one. I could picture her and Uncle Randolph in a board meeting together, talking about serious stuff I could never in a million years understand.

"So, Percy's coming. He should be here in a minute or something."

I blinked. _Everywhere_ took more time than that, unless he was, like, around the corner waiting – which would be creepy. Or maybe Greeks could use the World Tree. Who knew?

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Oh, in San Francisco," Annabeth answered casually. "Pretty close."

I was terrible at Geography, and I'd stopped it four years ago, but even _I_ knew that San Francisco was nowhere near Boston.

"How is he-"

Annabeth glanced towards the shadows across the road, where a massive tree blocked out the sun. "Any second now-"

The shadows rippled, churning and distorting like something was trying to break out. I froze, hand locked around my pendant in case I needed Jack. Of course, passing out in front of Annabeth wouldn't be preferable, but-

A giant dog erupted from the tree.

I'd seen some pretty big things – the World Serpent does tend to give you a unique perspective like that – so I wasn't as surprised as I might have been – which was to say, pretty darn surprised.

It dwarfed the falafel restaurant with sheer bulk – I could see each individual strand of fur on its back, and each could've made a pretty good spear. Its eyes were bright red, and glowing like pricks of lava in a sea of darkness.

Then it crashed to the ground and instantly started snoring.

Now it was asleep, I could see another figure – this one human size – jumping down off its back. They wore a navy blue hoodie like the ones sports teams give out, jeans and tattered dark sneakers.

"Percy?" I guessed.

 **I never originally intended to keep going with this, but it was one of the most popular one shots I've ever written, and a lot of people seemed to want more chapters. So… voila.**

 **I did this in first person because that's how Uncle Rick writes Magnus – if you don't like it, review and tell me. Actually, in general, please review!**


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